The first group deportation of Iraqis for six months has seen a number of asylum seekers returned to a country convulsed by civil rights protests and violence.The decision to resume charter flights was in defiance of warnings by the United Nations high commissioner for refugees that it is unsafe to remove people to Baghdad and central Iraq.

The plane, organised by the UK Borders Agency in conjunction with the Swedish government and the EU border agency Frontex, left Stansted airport at 7am on Wednesday. Last-minute appeals on behalf of other failed asylum seekers prevented several others from being forcibly repatriated. It is not known how many deportees from Sweden were on board.

Charter flight removals to Baghdad were temporarily suspended last October after the European court of human rights ruled that a surge in sectarian violence and suicide bombings made Baghdad and the surrounding area too dangerous.

The Home Office has since pledged to "continue to undertake" deportations but acknowledged that, in cases where the Strasbourg court supported petitions from individuals demonstrating that they were at risk, it would not enforce removal.Refugee organisations said that as many as 17 people had been deported, but the Home Office maintained that only eight had gone.

Protesters in Baghdad and northern Iraq are staging "Arab spring"-style protests against corruption, poor services and lack of employment. As many as 30 demonstrators have been killed in the capital and the Kurdish city of Suleimaniya since mid-February as authorities have suppressed dissent.

The UNHCR has criticised European states, including the UK, that have sent Iraqis back to the five central governorates, or provinces, including Baghdad. "We are very concerned about reports that the Home Office has returned Iraqis to Baghdad," a spokeswoman for the UNHCR said. "The situation for minorities [such as Christians] in Iraq is very precarious. There has been a deterioration in security."

The International Federation of Iraqi Refugees, which monitors removals, said the resumption of charter flights had been done at a time when attention was focused on Libya.

"The UK government, while it is saying how much it supports democracy and human rights in Libya, continues to support the corrupt governments in Iraq and Kurdistan," said a spokesman. "Now it is deporting people, many of whom left to flee this same government violence, into the middle of it. It is a criminal hypocrisy and must be stopped."

A Home Office spokesman said: "The UK courts have confirmed that we are able to return people to all of Iraq and that the return of Kurdish Iraqis via Baghdad does not expose them to serious harm. The UK Border Agency would prefer that those with no legal basis to remain in the UK leave voluntarily. Where they do not, we will seek to enforce their removal."

By Owen Bowcott, guardian.co.uk

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Fleeing after years of war in Iraq, many refugees arriving in the United States can't find the jobs they need to rebuild their lives.Unemployment among Iraqi refugees is estimated at nearly three times the national average of 9 percent, and up to 2,000 of those who arrived in the past four years may have left for other countries.

Some Iraqis are now even contemplating going home as the United States struggles to recover from its worst economic downturn in decades, experts say."I've tried for every kind of job, from translating, teaching, consulting, mentoring, down to cat sitter or housekeeper, every kind of work," said Nour al-Khal, a woman in her 30s who fled Iraq after being shot in an attack that killed U.S. journalist Steven Vincent in 2005.

"If I go back to Iraq 100 percent I could get killed ... (but) living unemployed makes me feel like I've lost my identity. I feel like a burden. There are no jobs here," said Khal, who holds a bachelor's degree in English and lives in New York.Originally from the Shiite-dominated city of Basra in Iraq's south, Khal had worked as a translator for Vincent and with the U.S. Agency for International Development.

At least 60,000 Iraqi refugees have arrived in the United States since immigration restrictions were eased in 2007, said the International Organization for Migration (IOM), an intergovernmental agency established after World War Two.Many of them had been threatened for having worked with U.S. companies, aid groups and government agencies, IOM said.

Abdallah Boumediene, head of a community and health center for a large Muslim population in Sterling Heights, Michigan, estimated that up to 3 percent of the 60,000 Iraqi refugees who have arrived since 2007 may have left.

"It could be as many as 2,000," Boumediene said. "It's not always going back to Iraq, it is often neighboring countries where they feel they will be better able to use their skills and expertise. Some have gone to Iran."Boumediene said he estimated the jobless rate for Arab immigrants is roughly double the Michigan average of 14 percent and triple the national rate of 9 percent.

ABANDONED

It is hard to know how many have left. Neither the IOM nor the Iraqi Embassy in Washington track the number refugees who later decide to leave, and the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service only has exit records for deported Iraqis.

Iraqi artist Esam Pasha in New London, Connecticut, wants to return to his country but understands he would need a period of readjustment because Iraq has changed since he left."The places that I lived in and worked have all been destroyed, rebuilt, and destroyed again," Pasha said. "One day I hope to go back but I know it will take time to adapt when I do. Things have changed immensely."

Bob Carey, of the International Rescue Committee, which helps refugees fleeing war and natural disasters, said those thinking of returning should not underestimate the dangers."Talking to refugees, the threats to many of them still stand and haven't gone away with time," Carey said.

James Zogby, the pollster who is also founder and president of the Arab American Institute, said the situation in the United States could get worse, with many more refugees expected to arrive as Washington aims to withdraw completely from Iraq by the end of the year.

He said Iraqi refugees arriving in the United States "feel abandoned in a new country with limited language skills. They were promised things before they came and now they're cut off in a strange land."

Khal said she would stay if she could find work."I'm a moderate Muslim, I don't wear a scarf, I'm westernized," she said. "I feel I've done my part. I want American society to do its part. I've already shed my blood with Americans in Iraq."

By Reuters with editing by Michelle Nichols and Xavier Briand.

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Iraqis have become the largest group of refugees entering the United States. Last year, nearly 700 Iraqis came to Massachusetts, many of them fearing for their lives after working with the American military. Many families are having a hard time making it in Massachusetts.

Ahmed Almusarawy and his 4-year-old daughter frequent a Chelsea relief agency for clothes and English classes. He's trying to rebuild a life for his wife and four children after being shot while working as a state department driver in Iraq.With the help of a translator, Almusarawy described his injuries."Twelve bullets in his stomach and his leg," the translator said.

Almusarawy has struggled since he arrived in Massachusetts nearly a year ago, and he can no longer afford his $1,100 Chelsea rent."They told us, 'You will have a house, a job,'" said Almusarawy.Other Iraqi refugees tell similar stories. The government subsidies don't cover the high rent on Boston area homes, in which they were placed by resettlement agencies. Jobs are hard to find.

"We see a hard time in my country and we see a hard time here. We can't do anything," said Awatif Albadri.Albadri fled Iraq after militias killed her 23-year-old son for working as a translator with the U.S army."The last thing they take was my home. They tell us to leave the home. If you don't leave it, we will kill you and everybody in the home," said Albadri.

A spokesman told NewsCenter 5 that the state department will "review the U.S. refugee resettlement program and the challenges that refugees face given the current economic downturn."That review may come too late for Hameed Nasif, who brought his five children here in September. Through a translator, he talked about promises by the U.S. government."To help you, and assist you to find a job, to learn you the language, to assist you with anything," said Nasif.

With no job, Nasif can no longer afford their $1,600 a month Everett apartment.Nasif's family, as well as Almusarawy's, are both due in court Thursday facing eviction hearings."It's scary. They are scared for the future," said Nasif."There is no answer. No answer. You must do something for these families." said Albadri.

The Massachusetts Office for Refugees and Immigrants acknowledged there are challenges, but in a phone call to NewsCenter 5, Director Richard Chacon called Massachusetts a "national model for other states."He said while housing is expensive in the Boston area, wages tend to be higher and refugees often find more affordable housing elsewhere in the state.

Chacon said figures from Fiscal Year 2010 show 59 percent of all Massachusetts refugees found jobs at an average wage of $10.24 an hour. But he did not have specific numbers for the Iraqi refugees.The local resettlement agencies responsible for temporarily funding, then assisting the refugees once they arrive did not return calls from NewsCenter 5.

Statement from United States State Department:

The United States recognizes a special responsibility to the Iraqis who helped U.S. troops and other U.S-based organizations in Iraq. In 2008, the U.S. instituted a direct access program that provides Iraqis with U.S. affiliations the option of applying to the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program directly, without the need for a referral.

The United States also created a Special Immigrant Visa Program that allows, under certain circumstances, Iraqis who have worked for (or on behalf of) the United States goverment to resettle in the United States.

We recognize that many resettled refugees in the United States are having a hard time in this economy. The current economic situation is challenging the ability of federal and state agencies, and private non-profit agencies to assist refugees in need. We are working hard to develop solutions.

In 2009, the Dept. of State made an extra $5 million in funding available to refugees in need arriving in the U.S. to help defray housing costs.In 2010, the State Department increased the Reception and Placement per capita grant from $900 to $1,800, effective as of January 1, 2010.

Based on a regulatory provision that allows states to provide additional services aimed at supporting and maintaining family stability, the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR), within HHS, has authorized states to request that their social services funding be used for emergency refugee housing.

The NSC is leading an inter-agency process to review the U.S. refugee resettlement program, with particular attention to the challenges that refugees face after arrival in the United States given the current economic downturn.